Chapter 2: Attack

Masa Kouki walked through the lobby of the Hilton hotel, stretching his legs during a study break. His parents had sprung for the two-week study package – room, board, and silence. "Or I would have silence, if my Mom would stop calling every hour," he thought with exasperation. "The whole point was to get away from the constant interruptions. I mean – c'mon on! I know how important these tests are! I don't need to be reminded!"

He left the lobby and walked back to the building wing his room was in. Along the way he passed many students also staying here for the same reason; the hotel had group them all together. As he started to climb the stairs, the lights went out, plunging the stairwell into darkness. As he heard shouting and complaining echoing throughout the wing, he realized the power loss was not just the hallway – again. "What the hell is going on?!" he thought angrily. "I just complained about this! The hotel insists they can't pinpoint the trouble! Dad's paying good money!" His rage and frustration continued to build. "How the hell am I suppose to pass if I can't…"

Suddenly, his rage collapsed and he almost passed out. All of his energy seemed to leave him and he clung desperately to the railing to stop from tumbling down the stairs. "What…what just happened?" he thought groggily. Masa clung to the stairs for what seemed like an eternity until the lights came back on. Even then, he didn't have the energy to move and just stayed there.

Finally, a girl came down the stairs and saw him there with his head hanging low. "Are you all right?" she asked him. As Masa lifted his head, she gasped and pulled out her phone. Quickly she dialed the hotel front desk. "Hello, we have a medical emergency in stairway B in the West Wing!"

Hideo Jouda stood on the third floor of the hotel. Something was wrong, something was very wrong. The atmosphere felt thick and murky despite the crisp winter air outside. Seven students had collapsed and had to be taken to the hospital. The official cause was listed as "exhaustion", but Hideo didn't by it. Neither did the hotel clerk, who was a friend of Hideo's. "The hotel has been plagued by power outages all day – something is throwing breakers without cause," he thought. "And whatever-it-is is hiding from me. I can Feel it, but I can't See it. Let's see how clever it is…" He pulled out a large pure quartz crystal and held it on his open palm. Immediately, the air cleared. "No good, it's intelligent enough to retreat. I need a little help and Tofu's out of town." He thought about that for a minute and added: "But his brothers are not…"

Ranma was standing on the roof of the dojo trying to figure out where the sense of foreboding was coming from. "I – we – do not need this right now," he thought. "We've managed to hold everything together, but something's pushing at everyone in the dojo. Hideo's Study Candles are burning like blow torches." He thought about that longer. Then he pulled out his phone and dialed Mousse.

"Yo," the familiar voice answered.

"Yo, yourself, Duck Boy," Ranma replied.

"Stuff it, Red-head," Mousse returned easily. "Did Hideo call you yet?"

"No, why?"

"He will. There's something hunting students at the Hilton. It's taken out seven so far. Ukyo called here too. Something's not right with the group in her apartment. She's forcing them to take a break – they were overwound."

"I think we need to do something like that here," Ranma told him.

"Then do it and call Hideo," Mousse said.

Hideo lit the large Serenity Candle in the center of the dojo. Immediately, the eighty or so students watching him relaxed. "There," he said confidently. "That will allow you to study again. The candle's good for eight hours. We should have more of a clue by then."

"All right," Hinako called out. "You heard him – back to work." The students dispersed back to their study groups.

Hideo turned to Ranma, Akane, and Mousse. "We'll stop at Ucchan's and set up some more Study Candles. That's a smaller group and the Candles should hold them for now. Then we hit the Hilton and try and figure this out. That group's too big to Shield any way you look at it, so we have to solve the problem outright."

Ranma turned to Akane and started to speak, but she cut him off with a warning: "Don't even try." Mousse couldn't quite stop his smirk.

Ranma sighed and pulled out his phone. "Who are you calling?" Hideo asked him.

"The Hilton's a big hotel. We could use a few more people anyway," Ranma answered. Akane smiled at the easy victory.

On the third ring, Olaf picked up. "Shouldn't you be studying?" he asked. Olaf was the senior mercenary of Tofu's team – a team Tofu had left Ranma in charge of (with very little notice) while Tofu was on his honeymoon.

"We have a problem at the Hilton downtown," Ranma answered without preamble. "Some kids are in trouble. Can you gather the others and meet us there? Hideo's going to drive us there. We have to stop at Ucchan's and set up some Wards, but we will meet you at the Hilton as soon as we can."

"Done, lad."

Ukyo and Konatsu were with Ranma's group as Hideo drove them up to the Hilton. Tofu's mercenary team consisting of Olaf, Ciren, Mausu, and Daran were waiting for them. Olaf, dressed rather sharply, towered above the others, standing at two-and-a-half meters tall. Daran, a dark-skinned American dressed in jeans, a fedora, and a heavy leather jacket, watched the teenagers climbing out of the cargo van and commented to Hideo: "You should paint 'Mystery Machine' on the side of your van."

"We're missing the dog," Hideo tossed back. He looked at the hotel and commented: "It's worse."

"It feels empty," Mousse observed.

"And it's actually full," Hideo told him. "What does that tell you?"

"Something – or lots of something - is Cloaking heavily," Mousse answered.

"Actually, there's another answer," Ciren added grimly. "Something's feeding on all the stray energy."

"Right," Hideo said. "Don't let it feed on you."

Ukyo looked at Ciren dressed conspicuously in her heavy hunting leathers and wearing a cloak as opposed to the three waiting men who were all dressed in more standard clothes. Ciren was also holding a compound crossbow. "Aren't you a little noticeable?" the Chef asked her.

Mausu shook his head in mock annoyance. The little Mediterranean man replied: "You would think a tall, blonde woman would be noticeable, wouldn't you? If I walked around in my working clothes like that, I'd be pitched into prison."

Ciren winked at Ukyo after she dope-slapped Mausu – the two women had gotten to know each other at Kasumi's wedding. "Trust me, no one will pay any attention to me. I have ways of being forgettable." Ukyo half chuckled.

Hideo took charge. "All right. We need to split up and find this thing. Our Seers are Mousse, Ciren, Daran and me." Daran took out a pair of sunglasses and put them on. "Mousse, you're the strongest Seer among us. You take Ranma and Olaf with you. Ciren, you take Ukyo and Akane – I understand they're less likely to cloud your Sight. Daran, I know you and Mausu have already worked together on similar missions..." The dark-skinned man just nodded. "So take him. Konatsu? I need someone quiet – you're with me." The male Kunoichi also nodded. "Let's go."

"I didn't know you were a Seer," Akane said to Ciren as they walked through the tenth floor of the wing.

"I don't advertise my abilities – it keeps my enemies off guard," Ciren said.

"And your friends," Ukyo bantered.

"That too," Ciren added with a smile. "I'm more sensitive to Yang spirits than Yin, but I can sense when either type is about." She paused and added: "At least normally I can. The psychic atmosphere here is as thick as soup."

They were walking slowly down the hall when the power gave out. "That's weird, there's nothing that…" Akane started, only to be cut off by a woman screaming:

"NO! NOT AGAIN! HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSE…*"

The tirade choked off suddenly. The sounds of retching came from one room. "Quickly! Get that door open!" Ciren commanded as she pointed at a door on Ukyo's side of the hallway. Ukyo immediately kicked the door and knocked it in. In the room, a young woman struggled on the floor with an unseen opponent. Ciren stood back and fired an arrow into the air above the fallen high school student and the arrow struck something invisible. "Chi blasts!" Ciren yelled. "Aim at the arrow!"

Two Chi balls flew from Akane and Ukyo to smash the arrow. Something hidden gave an unearthly scream and fled. The trio raced to the student's side. Ciren grabbed the girl and shook her. The young woman started to moan. "She's still warm! They didn't get a chance to drain her!"

"What was that?!" Akane demanded.

"Not that…They!" Ciren corrected.

Mousse, Ranma, and Olaf were searching the third floor when the power went out. Shouting rose around them. Mousse felt something black in the darkness surrounding him. "Oh crap, it's here and looking for a victim," Mousse stated in a low voice.

"Where?" Ranma demanded.

"Coming right toward us from the front…"

"Right then!" Olaf snapped. He seemed to reach inside his jacket and pulled out a huge war hammer. The weapon glowed in the darkness. With a battle cry, Olaf hurled the hammer at the unseen foe. The weapon smashed into something and a shattering sound rang out. Then the hammer bounced back into Olaf's outstretched hand. The lights came on again.

Mousse burst out "Where the hell did that come from?" while indicating the huge weapon.

"What? You think you're the only one that can hide a weapon?" Olaf said with a raised eyebrow.

"Never mind!" Ranma ordered. "What the did you see? What did the hammer hit?"

"Hungry ghosts," Mousse stated.

"A gaki's not powerful enough to do all this," Ranma challenged. He skipped over the hammer's ability to strike a ghost.

"Not one gaki," Mousse corrected. "Dozens of gakis – all bound together until Olaf's hammer hit them and broke their bond. We have a real problem."

Ranma and Olaf began to curse.

Daran and Mausu walked through the ballroom filled with tables. All of the tables were occupied by students. "Why are we here?" Mausu asked. "Nothing's going to strike here. Everyone who has been hit was alone."

"Mausu, close your mouth and your eyes. Just listen," Daran told him.

Mausu did so. "It sounds like a church with all the whispering," he noted.

"Now imagine the room being empty," Daran directed. "Because these kids are not talking – their heads are down over their books."

Mausu paused for a moment and then sighed. "Ah hell, it's Cairo all over again. We've got Undead in here."

"Yeah, this is the Hunting Ground. I can see gakis – easily hundreds of them – poking at the kids, seeing who's close to breaking. Some of these kids have dozens of gakis hanging above them, just waiting for something. I've got a feeling that the gakis are somehow striking en mass when a kid does break. The teenager is susceptible to the monsters then and they can drain him or her."

"Who's next?"

"That boy over there. He's got twenty-five of the little bastards on him, and they are becoming more defined by the minute. If he leaves this room, they'll attack and try and push him over the edge."

"Not happening." Mausu reached into his satchel and pulled out some bandages and four splints. He placed two splints on his leg and then wrapped his leg from the toe to the thigh. "Help me do my arm and head," he asked.

Daran placed the arm in a sling and bandaged the head. "What are you up to?" he asked.

"The boy needs a distraction. I'm going to give him one. I know how the Japanese think as well as you do. We'll start out with sympathy and pity, and end up with laughter," Mausu said confidently.

"Sorry?"

"I'm going to tell the story of 'The Bricklayer' – starring me," Mausu clarified. Daran's eyes widened in understanding. "Do you have a bottle of whiskey on you?" Mausu asked.

"I'll find one," Daran answered.

"Wait. Let's make sure I catch this kid's attention first. If I can get more kids' attention, the better."

Daran nodded and Mausu left him to hobble and stagger toward the target. Mausu seem to stumble into the boy's chair, disrupting the young man's concentration and scattering his notes. The teenager jumped up and was about to snap at Mausu until the youth noted the extensive bandages. Immediately, the young man's posture softened. Instead of yelling, the student asked: "Are you all right?"

"Sorry lad," Mausu apologized. "I'm not doing too well. I've hit a rough patch and it has left me a little addled."

"What happened?" the boy said as he obligingly gave Mausu the opening the short man was hoping for.

"Well, lad, you see…I'm a construction worker – a bricklayer actually…" Mausu started.

"You had an accident?" the student inquired solicitously.

"If you can call it that," Mausu said sourly. "You see, I was working on a building downtown that was about ten stories tall." Mausu began to totter and the young man quickly pulled a chair up behind Mausu so the little man fell into it. "Thanks lad…I was replacing the brick crown of a building – pulling the old crumbling bricks and replacing them with new. The day was getting on and it was time to wrap things up for the night."

"Now there was a ton of the old bricks lying around, and I needed to gather them up and carry them away – down the ten flights. It was not something I was looking forward too. So I applied my head to the problem." He paused and added: "My first mistake." Then he continued: "I decided that I would lower the old bricks down the side of the building using one of the barrels that were used to haul material up to the roof. There was a pulley mounted over the side of the building with a rope already threaded through it. The empty barrel was on the ground, so I went down and used the pulley to haul it up to the roof. Then I tied it off and climbed back to the roof. I filled the barrel with all the broken bricks it could carry." Mausu then paused melancholy.

"You look like you could use a drink, man," Daran broke in. Mausu nodded morosely and Daran handed him an open bottle of whiskey. The student was listening raptly.

Daran pulled up a chair as Mausu took a drink with a wince and continued: "Now, I walked back down the ten flights and prepared to release the rope that held the barrel up. Figuring that I needed to keep a firm grip on the rope, I wrapped it once about my wrist."

"Oh, no" a girl nearby whispered. Others were also becoming wrapped up in the story. The original boy paled as he glanced at the physics book in front of him.

Mausu just nodded and took another swig. "You already see what I missed – at least I missed it until after I released the catch on the rope. Now, I weigh about 80kg, but the barrel weighed at least twice that. The barrel being so much heavier than myself began a rapid descent down the side of the building. I was immediately yanked into the air before I knew what was happening and likewise began a rapid ascent up the side of the building. On the way up, I met the barrel on the way down. During the encounter, I smashed my shoulder badly and almost lost the rope, which would have meant a five story fall." He leaned conspiringly toward the lad and murmured: "Although I might have been better off than what did happen."

"What did happen?" the student prompted.

Mausu took another drink. "When I reached the top," Mausu continued. "I banged my head on the pulley's crossbar and my fingers got jammed into the pulley up to the knuckles. Unfortunately, the barrel hit the ground badly and fell over. Most of the brick fragments poured out. I know it was most, because, lo and behold, I now weighed more than the barrel. I was too racked with pain to do anything other than give into gravity and I began falling."

Some of the students muttered "Oh gods."

Again, Mausu took another swig from the bottle. "Halfway down, I met the bloody barrel on its way up. I managed to break my leg at that meeting. When I hit the ground, I landed among the broken bricks there and received several cuts for my trouble. At least I was on the ground and still breathing – I thought the worst was over. But the barrel hit the pulley and crosspiece hard, causing the bottom to give way. I could do nothing but lay there as it rained rocks on me."

There was groaning from the students now. "What happened next?" the teenager asked.

Mausu sat there for a moment with a stony expression on his face. He took a drink from the bottle. Then he took another. And then another. Finally he said: "In my defense, I was beaten and abused. My brain was definitely out of it."

"What?" a girl asked.

Mausu drained the bottle and stated: "I let go of the fecking rope." Cries of dismay sounded around him as he continued: "The barrel, now weighing more than nothing, descended and landed right across me, breaking three ribs and my arm." People around Mausu now held their heads in their hands.

The original student looked at Mausu with a mixture of disbelief and sympathy. "What did you do?" he asked.

Mausu sighed heavily. "There was nothing I could do until my manager and several fellows ran over to me. When they got there, do you know what I said?" The boy shook his head. Mausu stated with a twinkle in his eye: "I looked straight at my boss as I lay there and said in a very formal voice: 'Dear sir, I respectfully request sick leave for the rest of the day'."

The student looked at Mausu as if the little man had suddenly lost his mind. But as he sat there for a few moments, something clicked, and the teenager began to smile wanly. Others began to chuckle. "Why did you tell me that story – with props?" the lad asked

"Because there are worst things that this test that have you so worked up," Mausu stated. "I guarantee no matter happens, the sun will rise tomorrow. You'll probably do well, but on the off-chance you don't, I'm sure you are smart enough to find a way forward." The students gathered around the pair seemed to nod to themselves.

The young man considered that and nodded as well. After a few moments, he challenged: "Name one real thing worse than this test though."

"That's easy," Mausu answered. He then leaned over to Daran and dope-slapped his teammate. "You cheap bastard!" Mausu shouted in mock-anger as he waved the empty bottle of whiskey. "This was water!" The student – and the rest of the room – howled with laughter. People could almost hear the gakis fleeing the sound…

Hideo was on his phone as the others met up with him in the lobby of the Hilton hotel. "Then come to the Hilton to see the problem for yourselves," they heard him say – he sounded very frustrated. "We either have to deal with the problem here, or we'll have a rash of suicides by morning. Something's amped them up." There was a long pause and then he closed his phone.

"What's 'amped' up the gakis?" Akane questioned.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Hideo told her. "Somehow, they can now band together. The stray anguish from your classmates is somehow allowing them to do it. The created super-gaki can then really do damage – like draining life energy. If we let them do that too many times, they'll be able to steal souls in anguish..."

"Like anyone taking exams," Ranma finished for him. Hideo just nodded. "So are the other mages on their way?"

"No," Hideo said. "I can't get them to take this seriously. Gakis don't normally do this. Everyone's convinced the kids are just working themselves up and hitting the wall. It does happen every year after all." He made a face then. "Besides, they think I'm 'up to the job' for ghost-hunting."

"It sucks to be considered 'competent'," Ciren noted.

"So, they expect you to protect all of Nerima," Ukyo said in disbelief.

"Pretty much," Hideo said. "I suppose I could stop the gakis from combining here, but they're just going to find more kids elsewhere. The Hilton is not the only hotel hosting students – just the largest."

"You're not alone," stated Olaf. "But even so, there are study groups all across Nerima."

"So, we need manpower," Ranma concluded. Hideo nodded. "O.K., let's fix this," Ranma stated as he pulled out his phone. The others wore various expressions of surprise at the statement. Meanwhile, Ranma dialed a number. When someone answered, Ranma said: "Hello, it's me, Mom."

"Thanks for helping out, Mr. – Toshio." Hideo told Toshio Kuno, changing the address at the other man's warning look. They were standing in the lobby of the Hilton.

"You're more than welcome," Toshio answered back with more than a hint of warmth. "I'm sorry you had to investigate this by yourself."

"Well, not quite by myself," Hideo said with an amused look.

"Yes, I'm glad the Tendo Dojo crew was about, but I meant in terms of full-time mages. With Ono out of town, the others should have stepped up instead of having to get their arms twisted by Ms. Saotome and the Nerima Gossip Forum," Kuno said with thinly veiled contempt for the slackers.

"And how did she twist your arm?" Hideo asked with a raise eyebrow and a grin.

"I have a date next weekend," Kuno answered smugly. "Not all persuasion is unpleasant." Both men shared a short laugh and then Toshio continued: "I can set three mages here to keep this group safe. I'll also arrange to pull in any smaller groups I can to here. The slackers will watch the other hotels – we'll move groups into those too."

"Olaf and Daran will watch over the group at Ucchan's," Hideo said. "Mousse and Cologne will watch over the Cat Café, and Ciren and I will take turns at the Tendo Dojo."

"I'm surprised Ranma isn't putting up a fight about that," Toshio noted. "He hates to have someone protect him."

"Oh, he's complaining all right, but he still has to study, whether he likes it or not. Besides, I have his Mom and Hinako to pressure him," Hideo said with a wink.

A/N: The story "The Bricklayer" (also called "The Bricklayer's Lament") has been around a long time in various incarnations. One of the most famous versions was by Gerard Hoffnung performed at the Oxford Union on December 4th, 1958. There's also a folk music piece titled "The Bricklayer's Song" by the Corries (1980) – one of many.

A/N: Up next - The Newlyweds Return